Energy and Food

The sustainable supply of food, energy and water is becoming more acute. The world faces numerous challenges in dealing with these interlinked issues and needs to develop integrated solutions. Whilst energy is widely regarded as the heart of sustainable development, food and water security is intrinsically linked with energy. Energy is required at all stages of food production and each stage from 'farm to fork'. Energy is also interlinked with water security, particularly in groundwater irrigation for agriculture, pumping, treatment and desalination.

With a rapidly increasing global population, urbanisation and growing middle classes, the global food supply chain will become increasingly challenged. The response to date, through intensive farming and use of fertilisers and chemicals is at a huge cost to scarce resources.

Our research insights to date, (Food Security: Near Future Projections of the Impact of Drought in Asia), have focused on the near term impacts of drought on major food crops (see below) and we are now developing supply chain tools with identified hotspots and interventions.

Source: Food Security: Near Future Projections of the Impact of Drought in Asia report

This assessment was coupled with an analysis of adaptive capacity for each staple crop, calculated from projections of key socio-economic drivers:

In brief, the report examines the potential risks of climate change-driven drought on production of wheat, maize and rice across Asia in the 2020s, giving it immediacy for policy makers. The methodology demonstrates that impact predictions are possible by coupling climatic modelling with socio-economic drivers and that the results highlight areas of high risk and the potential impacts at local and global scales, that can hopefully better inform governments’ mitigation and adaptation strategies.

Source: Food Security: Near Future Projections of the Impact of Drought in Asia report

Featured report

The Lima-Callao area has a population of 9 million andan economy worth US$66 billion in 2014. The preliminary results of our research indicate that the total energy bill for the city was US$4.7 billion and that the bill for waste and water was US$50 billion - meaning that 8% of everything earned in the local economy was spent on energy, water and waste.

The Centre for Low Carbon Futures (CLCF) is a collaborative research centre that focuses on the evidence base and demonstration of low carbon innovations, formed by the Universities of Birmingham, Hull, Leeds, Sheffield and York.